


Apocalypse How

by kethni



Series: 5 AUs Kent and Selina Were Friends with Benefits [2]
Category: Veep (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-14 03:36:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14761859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kethni/pseuds/kethni
Summary: The bad news was that the world had ended.The good news was that life, of a sort, went on.





	Apocalypse How

 

‘I want to go outside,’ Catherine whined.

Selina was pacing to and fro, flipping a pen between her fingers. ‘We all want to go outside,’ she said. ‘But we fucking can’t. Okay? So just do what we all do and suck it up.’

Catherine slumped towards the door. Selina rolled her eyes.

‘Nobody wants to be in this situation!’ she called after her.

That wasn’t true. Some people did. The preppers and the religious crazies who thought the apocalypse was going to be the first step to them being taken to heaven. It turned out though that this apocalypse, just like the ice ages, the meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs, and the Fall of the Roman Empire, was less an end than it was a reset.

The bad news was that the world had ended.

The good news was that life, of a sort, went on.

 As Selina stomped through the damp, concrete corridors she tried not to think about the _sort_ of life available to them now.

The complex wasn’t huge, it couldn’t be, but there were rooms that she’d never gone into. Rooms that she never would go into. She used to whine that her life before was proscribed. Jesus. She’d had _no_ idea. Now her life was… what, a couple of square miles at most. A tiny fraction of the country. That wasn’t the worst of it.

The control room had the lingering smell of anxious male flop sweat. Even in the middle of the night, when she was the only person in there, she could still smell the traces of it. Anxiety and panic was as much background noise as the ticking of the Geiger metres.

Selina accepted a coffee from a general. It was her own personal stock. Coffee, like everything else, was strictly controlled: restricted only to tier one personnel and tightly rationed. There wasn’t enough to last long and no more was expected any time soon. 

She sat at the table with what remained of the senior members of congress. The speaker rubbed his hands together.

‘We need to nail down this issue of repopulation,’ he said.

‘Nail?’ Selina asked. ‘You wanna rephrase that?’

***

Exercise didn’t help. Drinking didn’t help. Masturbating helped a _bit,_ but it wasn’t the same.

‘Everything okay?’ Ben asked warily as she paced the room.

‘Millions are dead, we’re in bunkers, asshole _men_ keep whining about there not being enough women for them to fuck, and there’s no end to this living hell in sight, so yeah of course everything is **fucking amazing**.’

‘Billions are dead,’ Kent murmured.

‘Not in America,’ she snarled. ‘I can’t even leave this fucking facility. For all I know the rest of the country outside of this building is god damn delusion so don’t even start me on the rest of the world!’

Her staff, sat tensely around the table, exchanged looks.

‘What?’

‘You seem kinda stressed,’ Amy said.

‘Everyone is stressed as fuck,’ Ben said. ‘You’re ready to climb the walls.’

Selina spun on her heel. ‘I should dig Hughes up and damn well kill him again.’

She heard a chair pushed back and someone stomp from the room.

‘That Ben?’ she asked.

‘Uh-huh,’ Amy said.

Selina turned around. None of them were looking at her.

‘I only meant…’

‘Ben _found_ President Hughes,’ Kent said. He was looking at his hands clasped together on the desk. ‘They had been friends since college.’

‘And he got us into this mess,’ Selina said, reddening. ‘He got us into this mess and then he took the easy way out.’

Kent looked at her. ‘And how does that make it acceptable to distress Ben?’

‘You love him so much why don’t you go kiss his boo-boo better?’ Selina sneered.

‘Fine.’ Kent stood up and walked to the door.

‘Don’t walk away from me!’

He looked at her over her shoulder. ‘Or _what_ , Ma’am? What can you do to make this hellish situation even worse?’

She opened her mouth to argue and then looked away as he left the room.

***

‘He’s right,’ Catherine said, folding her arms. ‘We’re trapped in hell! You’re the president of a couple of square miles and a few thousand people! What’re you going to do, downgrade Kent to one chocolate pudding a week?

Selina ground her teeth. ‘I am the president of the fucking _country_ , Catherine! I just can’t talk to most of it right now, that’s all. But we’re working on it. They’re going to fix the comms and we’re going to get on to fixing everything else.’

‘Sometimes I think Hughes had the right idea,’ Catherine said quietly.

‘Don’t fucking say that! Jesus Christ, do you know how lucky you are?’ Selina demanded. ‘We are gonna get through this, Catherine. It’s gonna be rough but we’re gonna do it.’

The younger woman pushed back her hair. ‘Maybe you should tell other people that instead of ranting.’

‘Don’t you fucking start,’ Selina said. ‘I’ve got Ben and Kent, my fucking bedrocks, giving me backchat. I don’t need you joining in.’

Catherine threw up her hands. ‘I wouldn’t have to “backchat” you if I had other people to speak to. Everyone here is so old! And male! There are _no_ girls my age.’

‘We’re not here to date,’ Selina said. ‘I’m not exactly swimming in dick myself, you know.’

Catherine cocked her head. ‘Is _that_ why you’re in such a shitty mood, because you can’t get laid? God, mom, just pick a guy and… tell him it’s his lucky day. There’s like fifteen guys for every woman here.’

Selina rolled her eyes. ‘I fucking know that. They keep muttering about repopulation quotas, which is asshole speak for some insane reverse Mormonism with every chick getting fifteen dicks.’

‘So, go… do that. Just please don’t tell me about it,’ she said.

***

The gym was always busy. For most of the population there wasn’t a lot else to do. When Selina walked in she smelled sweat and testosterone. The population was primarily split between members of congress, mostly middle-aged and older, and the secret service members in their twenties and early thirties. There were a handful of medics and other service workers, but they were vastly outnumbered.

Some people looked at Selina. She ignored them as she headed into the Pilates studio. It wasn’t as busy as the weight room or the boxing club. Typical of men that they’d prefer brute violence or mindless repetition as a method of stress relief.

She found Kent at a machine at the end of the room. He was wearing shorts and a sleeveless v-neck t-shirt. He was slimmer than she expected with lightly muscled limbs and a flat stomach. As he used the machine she heard his slightly breathlessness and saw the faint flush in his cheeks. He was pushing himself, but his movements were smooth and confident. She’d seen much younger men who didn’t look half as good.

‘Working hard?’ she asked.

He didn’t look at her. ‘Are you lost, Ma’am?’

‘Lost?’

‘I understood you had private facilities.’

Selina nodded. She was watching the way his muscles flexed. ‘Oh sure. Can’t let people see their president sweat. Bad for morale.’

Kent narrowed his eyes, released the equipment, and sat up. ‘Is there something I can help you with, Ma’am?’

‘Not if you’re gonna have that attitude,’ she said.

There were a few light beads of perspiration just below his hairline. He wiped them away with the back of his hand.

‘I’m attempting to alleviate stress,’ Kent said.

Selina licked her lips. ‘I know another way to release tension.’

***

He was pulling her hair. Her ankles were up on his shoulders and his hands were on either side of her head. His fingers were wound into her hair so that with every deep thrust he pulled her on it. 

Selina grunted, and her fingers clenched in the sheets. She closed her eyes and growled as she came. He came a few minutes later, pushing her legs away, and crashing onto the pillow next to her.

‘Fucking asshole,’ she mumbled.

‘Maybe next time.’

She slapped his arm. ‘Don’t be a smart ass.’

The bed shifted as he got up and headed to the shower. Selina turned to watch. Nice legs. Nice shoulders. Nice ass.

‘Hey.’

He turned around.

‘Did you fuck me just so you didn’t have to queue for a shower?’

‘No.’

He was still in there ten minutes later when Catherine came home.

God. Selina had thought she didn’t have any privacy before this whole mess.

She dragged herself up and staggered into the bathroom. ‘Make some room in there.’

He backed up obligingly. Water was running down his body, getting caught in his chest hair where the tiny beads glinted in the harsh light.

‘You ever fuck in a shower?’ Selina asked.

‘It’s very impractical.’ He handed her a bottle of shower gel.

‘So is sex.’

‘The pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable,’ Kent quoted.

She pushed back her hair. ‘Can you trust the word of someone paying for it?’

He watched her rubbing the gel into her skin. ‘Cost is more than money. There can be a physical cost, an emotional cost, a psychological cost... Some people take it very seriously.’

‘Some people need to get over themselves.’ She handed him the bottle and turned around. ‘Especially if we have to repopulate.’ She closed her eyes as he began washing her back. His hands were warm, strong, and gentle.

‘That’s a pipe dream,’ he murmured. ‘A half-baked science fiction plot married to someone’s sexual fantasy.’

She sighed. ‘Not enough women?’

‘Not in here, certainly, and many of the men are old enough than DNA degradation will begin to affect sperm quality. Sufficient genetic diversity is vital, and we cannot support that with the gender mix that we have.’

His hands slid down her back, rubbing and massaging.

‘Shame,’ Selina said. ‘Was kinda looking forward to having a harem.’

Kent chuckled. ‘Were you looking forward to bearing children continually until you were no longer capable?’

She looked over her shoulder at him. ‘Quit ruining my fantasy of a dozen sex playthings.’

‘Yes Ma’am.’

His hands were at the base of her back. His fingers flirted with the curve of her ass.

‘You’re good at that,’ she said.

‘Thank you.’

Selina turned to face him. ‘You’re saying we’re doomed?’

He shrugged. ‘It’s not the first time humanity has been reduced to a few thousand people.’ He kissed her softly. ‘You just have to accept it’s probably not going to our decedents who go on.’

‘Easy for you to say, you hate kids.’

He turned off the water. ‘No, I don’t.’ He wrapped a towel around his waist. ‘You don’t know me as well as you think you do.’

‘I know this was fun.’ She got out of the shower. ‘We could do it again sometime.’

He nodded. ‘Maybe before you get quite so irritable next time.’

Just for that, she didn’t warn him about Catherine. It’d serve them both right.

The End.

 

 


End file.
